6th Airborne Division in Palestine - Aftermath

Aftermath

Since the end of the Second World War, the campaign in the British Mandate of Palestine had cost the British 338 dead. The numbers for the 6th Airborne Division between October 1945 and April 1948 were fifty-eight men dead and 236 wounded due to enemy action, a further ninety-nine men died, from causes not associated with a hostile act. During their searches of Jewish and Arab settlements, men from the division had located 99 mortars, 34 machine guns, 174 sub machine guns, 375 rifles, 391 pistols, 97 land mines, 2,582 hand grenades and 302,530 rounds of ammunition.

In February 1948 the 2nd Parachute Brigade moved from England to Germany, becoming part of the British Army on the Rhine. The 6th Airborne Division was disbanded in April 1948, shortly after their return to England, leaving the 2nd Parachute Brigade as the only brigade-sized airborne formation in the British Army. Being the only surviving parachute formation, in June its battalions were renumbered: the 5th (Scottish) Parachute Battalion became the 2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment, while the 4th/6th Parachute Battalion became the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment, and the 7th (Light Infantry) Parachute Battalion became the 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment. Finally, in July 1948, the brigade was renumbered the 16th Parachute Brigade, taking the numbers "1" and "6" from the two wartime airborne divisions.

On 14 May, the day before the end of the British mandate, David Ben-Gurion, chairman of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, announced the establishment of the state of Israel in parts of what was known as the British Mandate of Palestine. The announcement was the catalyst for the start of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The infant state of Israel had, by the end of the war, mobilised around 100,000 soldiers forming twelve brigades and fledgling naval and air forces. These forces defeated the combined armies of five Arab states, forcing the majority of them back out of Israeli territory.